Personnel at MacDill Air Force Base (KMCF) in Tampa, Florida, closed the base to all nonessential personnel on Tuesday and have begun evacuating aircraft for the second time in as many weeks following Hurricane Helene. The base avoided the worst of Helene but sits in the middle of Tampa Bay, directly in Milton’s projected path. It is also home to the U.S. Central Command and U.S. Special Operations Command.

• READ MORE: NASA Postpones Europa Clipper Launch as Hurricane Milton Takes Aim at Cape Canaveral

According to an Air Force spokeswoman, MacDill’s 6th Refueling Wing this week relocated 12 KC-135 Stratotankers to McConnell Air Force Base (KIAB) in Kansas, just two days after the aircraft returned home. The spokeswoman also said that the 482nd Fighter Wing at Homestead Air Reserve Base (KHST) near Miami has begun relocating seven F-16 fighters to San Antonio.

The U.S. Navy and Space Force, meanwhile, are preparing to close bases across Florida and southeast Georgia. Navy officials told Military.com that aircraft will be evacuated from Naval Station Mayport off the coast of Jacksonville or hangared at the base.

Patrick Space Force Base near Cape Canaveral will close to nonessential personnel from Wednesday to Friday. Officials this week also postponed the launch of NASA and SpaceX’s Europa Clipper at nearby Kennedy Space Center. Milton is expected to hit the Space Coast after making landfall near Tampa.

• READ MORE: ‘Hurricane Hunters’ Fly Into the Eye of Hurricane Milton

The hurricane has also triggered airport closures across Florida and is expected to produce a potentially devastating storm surge.

As the military moves aircraft out of Milton’s path, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will continue to send its “hurricane hunters”—a pair of Lockheed WP-3Ds, or P-3s, affectionately dubbed “Kermit” and “Miss Piggy,” and a Gulfstream IV-SP nicknamed “Gonzo”—into the eye of the storm to help predict its trajectory.

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Construction in Melbourne is expected to begin in the second quarter of 2023, with the facility opening set for late 2024.

The new service center will allow Dassault to expand its U.S. footprint to keep up with the demand it is seeing for new jets from customers, according to Dassault Aviation’s chairman and CEO Eric Trappier.

The new facility will comprise 175,000 square feet,  and service all current Falcon models for its North and South American customers, according to Dassault. Altogether, the facility will have the capacity to accommodate 18 Falcon models simultaneously.

“We extensively evaluated several areas before we found that the business environment in Florida, along with its highly skilled workforce on the Space Coast, to be the perfect combination for this project,” Trappier said. “We appreciate the cooperative support received from the Governor’s office and the State of Florida. Their support and leadership made this possible.”

Leveraging Local Talent

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Monday that investing in the state’s workforce to attract top companies has been one of the state’s priorities. 

“Today’s announcement from Dassault Falcon Jet shows how these investments are paying dividends,” DeSantis said. “This new facility will bring high-paying jobs to Melbourne and lead to strong economic growth throughout Central Florida.”

Located on Florida’s Space Coast, which employs approximately 35,000 aviation personnel, Melbourne is strategically located close to educational institutions, such as the Florida Institute of Technology and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, which the OEM said it looked to leverage. 

Dassault said the Melbourne facility would be capable of completing heavy maintenance work and is being set up to do a range of things from line maintenance, C Checks, and various engineering and modifications services. There will be workshops, offices, lounges for customers, and a large warehouse for shop activities that also serves as a distribution hub. 

Dassault also said the site will house a 54,000-square-foot paint shop. 

In 2023, Dassault’s ExecuJet MRO Services will open a similar heavy-maintenance facility in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. The company said it will also begin construction on another heavy shop in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Altogether, Dassault now has more than 40 factory service locations and 20 authorized service centers across the world. 

The post Dassault To Build Major Maintenance Facility in Florida appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Falcon 9 is not Saturn nor is it the space shuttle, but it is America’s preeminent space-launch vehicle today. It has revolutionized the space industry by slashing the cost to orbit and making retro-propulsive landings de rigueur, and it has returned crewed spaceflight to our shores. Launches are still impressive events that attract a good number of locals and tourists alike; in two winters here, Dawn and I have been lucky to view more than a dozen (“Snowbirds on the Space Coast,” November 2020) including Falcon 9 test, cargo and crewed missions, as well as Atlas V, Delta IV and Delta IV Heavy shots.

For launches from LC-39A, we have found Playalinda Beach at Canaveral National Seashore to be a particularly spectacular viewing point. It’s only about 3 miles away from the pad—the closest the general public is allowed to get during any launch—affording not only a great view but also a thrilling auditory and sensory experience as well. This is why Sarah and Emilia, 13, Justice, 10, and Ari, 8, are driving with me to Playalinda Beach at this early hour. Today, they will see, hear and feel their very first rocket launch.

Dawn and I do not have any children of our own. Our childless status is not by choice, but we’ve made our peace with it—and truthfully have rather taken advantage of it. Our adventurous sea-nomad lifestyle of the past four years would have been possible with kids but not terribly likely. We do have 14 precocious nieces and nephews we love dearly; although, since leaving Minnesota, we don’t see them as often as we’d like.

Fortunately, like me, Sarah inherited our father’s wanderlust, and if her kids don’t get the bug as well, it won’t be for lack of exposure (among other far-flung adventures, they lived in northern Thailand for a year where Sarah worked for a nonprofit). This week, they don’t have school, and Sarah found cheap last-minute airline tickets, so the family made a quick escape from frigid Minnesota to sunny Florida. Thanks to several weather-related scrubs, their visit coincides nicely with the launch of SpaceX’s Starlink V1.0-L16 mission.

The sun is well above the horizon now, sparkling off rolling combers and bathing the seashore in gloriously warm golden light. Crying seagulls wheel overhead, sandpipers flit across the sand. Surf-casters tend their fishing poles, awaiting elusive bites. A crowd has gathered on the south end of the beach, all eyes on the bulbous payload fairing poking above the sea-oat-topped barrier dunes. Small jets of steam periodically issue from the rocket as liquid oxygen is loaded during the last 35 minutes of the countdown. The kids pepper me with questions—especially Ari, who is hobbling around the beach on crutches and a knee brace following a recent surgery after a downhill-skiing accident. There is no cell coverage out here, so I assume the launch is still on for 8:02 a.m. I count down the seconds aloud for the kids’ benefit.

Because the dunes obscure the bottom half of the rocket, our first indication of T minus zero is when the nose cone starts moving silently upward, ever so slowly at first. The massive cloud of steam and exhaust from liftoff mushrooms into view, just before the 300-foot plume of white-hot flame emitted by nine Merlin 1D engines produced a combined 1.7 million pounds of thrust. As soon as the engines clear the fixed service structure, the vehicle begins its pitch-over to the northeastern trajectory that makes Playalinda such a good vantage point for this mission.

Read More from Sam Weigel: Taking Wing

Fifteen seconds after liftoff, the boom of ignition finally reaches us, and the sound level rapidly increases to a guttural crackling roar that reverberates in one’s very rib cage. At close enough range, just the sound waves produced by the engines are strong enough to kill a human. Even 3 miles away, it’s thoroughly impressive. The kids squeal and yell and cheer, jumping up and down. The rocket passes almost overhead as it accelerates into the stratosphere, leaving behind a ragged contrail and flying through the speed of sound and maximum aerodynamic pressure (Max Q).

Two and a half minutes after liftoff, at 215,000 feet and 4,300 knots, the barely visible flame disappears with main-engine cutoff, and unseen by us, the first stage separates en route to a retro-propulsive landing on the drone ship Just Read the Instructions off the coast of North Carolina. Meanwhile, the second stage continues to a 366-by-213-kilometer orbit, where it deploys 60 Starlink mini satellites—some 12,000 of which will eventually provide high-speed internet coverage around the globe. Seventeen launches down, 183 to go. And all of this for the stated purpose of financing the human colonization of Mars. Yes, Elon Musk is a madman—but one who has repeatedly demonstrated an ability to turn “impossible” goals into reality. At this point, I wouldn’t bet against him.

The kids agree that the launch was well worth the early wake-up, but our day is not finished. A few hours later, we are flying up the Indian River in N35319, the 1978 Piper Warrior I’ve been renting from Voyager Aviation at Merritt Island Airport (KCOI). Emilia is in the right seat, and Justice and our dog, Piper, are in the back. All eyes are out the right-side windows as I point out the historic and current launch pads at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and Kennedy Space Center, the Blue Origin rocket plant, and the massive Vehicle Assembly Building before making a low pass down the 15,000-foot Shuttle Landing Facility runway.

On our way back, Emilia gingerly takes the controls and does an excellent job of holding heading and altitude and making shallow turns. It is her first time in a small airplane; Justice and Ari flew in our Piper Pacer when they were young. After landing, I swap out my kiddo and canine passengers for Sarah and Ari, who is beside herself with excitement as I strap her into the right seat. As soon as we take off, she’s ready to take the controls—and her turns aren’t so shallow. We repeat the previous flight path and land to find Dawn, Piper, Justice and Emilia sprawled out on a blanket in the grass watching the steady procession of landing aircraft. We decide that there’s enough time left for Justice to take his own turn at the controls. Sarah stays behind this time, while all three kids and I take off in the faded but faithful old Warrior.

After putting the airplane to bed, we head across the river to Windbird’s winter berth; it’s Sarah and the kids’ first time aboard our well-traveled home. Justice, Ari and Emilia climb all over it, inspecting all the rigging and fittings that mark it as a bluewater-cruising vessel, and they soon fixate on the 10-foot RIB hanging from our stern davits. We launch Little Bird, and Sarah, the kids and Piper pile in for a fun dinghy ride around the river (remarkably, our 15-horsepower two-stroke outboard is strong enough to plane out with six of us on board).

Naturally, the kids each get a turn learning how to drive a dinghy—yet another first for their jampacked day. But soon, they must head back to Daytona Beach so Sarah can get some remote work done tonight. Suddenly alone, Dawn and I watch the sunset from our cockpit, toasting the day with Dark ‘n’ Stormy sundowners and blowing our conch horn as the sun dips below the velveteen horizon. Any day I get to watch a rocket launch, fly a small airplane, and fool around with boats is a very good day. Sharing all that with my sister, nieces and nephew made it a fantastic one. I am once again reminded of the many blessings in my life, and I am truly grateful.

This story appeared in the April/May 2021 issue of Flying Magazine

The post One Perfect Day for Pilots appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

I have to confess that I have a very love-hate relationship with the state of Florida. On one hand, this upper-Midwestern country boy has come to crave white sand, salt water and warm winter sunshine, all of which Florida is blessed with in great abundance. On the other hand, I am decidedly not a fan of angrily snarled traffic, endless bleached-concrete sprawl, and the “Florida Man” drama that continually emanates from America’s third-most-populous state.

I’ve spent a lot of time here for work and pleasure over the years, and have come to appreciate Florida’s diverse flora and fauna, and understatedly beautiful wilderness in its yet-untouched spots (generally those too soggy to build another strip mall on). But most every mark that man has made upon the Sunshine State is brutally ugly.

A few thousand feet of altitude improves the state’s cosmetics considerably, and it is easy to see why general aviation thrives here despite the summer heat and humidity, fierce afternoon thunderstorms, periodic hurricanes, and occasionally frantic air traffic. There’s a lot to see and many interesting airports to visit, and if you ever tire of civilization’s dubious charms, the unspoiled paradise of the Bahamas is but a short hop away.

That said, my time exploring Florida by air with my Piper Pacer and with friends’ airplanes did little to tempt me into moving here, even after I was introduced to Spruce Creek Airpark. It wasn’t until sailing the state’s Atlantic coast in 2017 that Florida finally clicked for me. In a state with more coastline, islands and boats than any other in the Lower 48, Florida is, above all, a place to be experienced and enjoyed on the water. This was driven home even more when I did my seaplane rating at Jack Brown’s Seaplane Base.

When my airline assigned me a position as a New York City-based Boeing 737 captain last fall, Windbird was still in the southern Caribbean. Dawn and I decided to sail back north, taking advantage of New York’s coastal location to live in base for part of the year. Neither of us had any interest, however, in braving a northern winter aboard a sailboat set up for tropical cruising. Florida was the natural choice for a winter interlude: warm weather, lots of direct flights to New York (pre-COVID-19), and relatively easy access to our favorite anchorages in the Bahamas (also pre-COVID-19).

On our 2017 cruise, we had stopped at a town that would make an ideal base. Cocoa Village is a friendly, atmospheric town with a restored old-Florida downtown that occupies a pretty spot on the Indian River. It has lots of shops, restaurants and a world-class hardware store within easy walking distance of its cheap and cheerful marina. Importantly, it is about 35 minutes east of Orlando International Airport (KMCO). We reserved a slip and pointed Windbird’s bow north from Bonaire. Ten days and 1,300 nautical miles later, we arrived at our new winter home.

One of my top priorities for our stay was to get checked out in a local rental airplane, so shortly after arrival, I headed across the river to busy little Merritt Island Airport (KCOI). The first place I visited was a large Part 141 flight school with nice airplanes, a largely foreign clientele, and starch-collared instructors with shiny epaulets on their shoulders. The harried receptionist was rather confused as to why an ATP would want to fly a lowly Piper Warrior, but eventually quoted an eyebrow-raising rate and stipulated a minimum 10-hour (!) checkout.

Voyager Aviation, just across the airfield, was much more my speed, with a weathered but airworthy PA-28 at a reasonable rate, and a laid-back young instructor who conducted an efficient checkout and told me that my thousand hours of dual given in the type was still pretty apparent, lack of currency notwithstanding. Thus, Dawn and I gained access to a handy single-engine airplane with which to explore east Central Florida, the first significant GA flying we’ve done together since selling the Pacer four years ago. Dawn was pretty ecstatic to get back in the air.

On January 19, Dawn and I drove up to Titusville to watch our first rocket launch and a fairly noteworthy one at that: the SpaceX Crew Dragon’s in-flight abort test, the new design’s final unmanned flight before becoming the first post-shuttle American spacecraft to carry NASA astronauts. One of my few regrets in life is that I never got to see a shuttle launch before its 2011 retirement, and at first glance, SpaceX’s small rocket-borne capsule seems like a disappointing step back to the days of Gemini.

Read More from Sam Weigel: Taking Wing

But the more you learn about the shuttle program, you realize that it was an extraordinarily complex, ungainly design with quite a few compromises required to fulfill one specific, now-obsolete mission: to haul a lot of big, heavy equipment to orbit along with the humans required to assemble and operate it, and to reenter the atmosphere and land like an airplane. The shuttle had a number of failure modes that were not survivable, and in retrospect, it’s not terribly surprising that two vehicles and crews were lost in 135 missions. The SpaceX approach (like NASA’s pre-shuttle designs) is intrinsically safer: Put the people in a sturdy capsule on the pointy end of a liquid-fueled rocket with lots of engines for maximum reliability, and give the capsule its own rocket engines to get away quickly if things go drastically wrong.

It was Crew Dragon’s launch escape system that Dawn and I went to Titusville to see in action. After a delay for weather, the Falcon 9 rocket launched from Kennedy Space Center’s Pad 39A at exactly 11:30 a.m., flickering and crackling viciously as it accelerated through a cloud layer and reappeared above. At T plus 85 seconds, while the rocket was experiencing maximum aerodynamic pressure (max Q), the flame abruptly disappeared as the nine Merlin 1D engines were intentionally shut down.

Several things happened in quick succession: The Crew Dragon capsule automatically separated from the rocket, the LES’ eight SuperDraco thruster engines fired and accelerated the capsule up and away at 11.8 m/s2, and the unpowered Falcon rocket wobbled, tumbled and exploded in a massive fireball eerily reminiscent of Challenger, right down to the debris field that continued on a ballistic trajectory marked by vapor trails. The crowd gasped, then cheered as Crew Dragon shot clear of the fireball and arced eastward en route to a successful water landing seven minutes later.

As I watched through binoculars as Crew Dragon sailed downrange at 70,000 feet, I felt something stir inside me that I haven’t felt in a long time, and a keen interest in spaceflight was rekindled after a long dormancy. From that point, our winter was arranged around Kennedy Space Center’s launch schedule. We got to see quite a few more Falcon 9 and Atlas V launches, including several at night, both from Titusville and the surprisingly good viewing from Windbird’s aft deck (though the COVID-19 lockdown kept us from watching a launch at Playalinda Beach or KSC itself).

My Kindle library quickly bulged with space-related volumes, and I spent hours on YouTube watching videos from Apollo missions, the shuttles and the International Space Station. Every time Dawn and I flew the Warrior, we’d inevitably make a pass down the 15,000-foot Runway 15 at the Shuttle Landing Facility (KTTS), enjoying close-up views of the Vehicle Assembly Building, Pad 39A and the shuttle mock-up parked halfway down the strip. A total of 78 shuttle missions touched down here, and though you can only land with prior permission, GA pilots can legally do a flyby when the restricted area R-2934 is cold. It’s a neat experience.

Dawn and I sailed north to New York in late April, and so we watched online when SpaceX’s historic Demo-2 mission blasted off on May 30 and delivered NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken to the ISS some 19 hours later. The two-month test was a complete success, and Crew Dragon is expected to be human-rated shortly. About the time you’re reading this, Dawn and I will be making our fall migration from New York back down the Eastern Seaboard to Florida, hopefully arriving in time to watch the launch of Crew-1, Crew Dragon’s first operational mission to the ISS.

This winter, we plan to do a lot more exploring with the Warrior, and will hopefully duck over to the Bahamas with Windbird for a month or two. I’ve found a lot of things to like about Florida, and while I’m still not tempted by the prospect of a permanent move, I’m definitely looking forward to another warm winter interlude spent in the Sunshine State.

This story appeared in the November 2020, Buyers Guide issue of Flying Magazine

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